Think the martech landscape is big? Here’s the size of the software industry overall

About the 11 many years that I’ve been publishing the martech landscape, as it mushroomed from ~150 solutions to ~10,000, I have observed several men and women respond to it as an anomaly. “What is it about advertising that spawns so a lot of computer software applications? Absolutely no other job has to offer with this kind of sprawl!”

To which software overview web site G2 responds in this report, “Hold my beer.”

Although there are absolutely dynamics distinct to advertising that feed the frenzy of new martech startups, the fact is that martech is merely a aspect of a considerably more substantial computer software revolution. Marc Andreessen called it “software ingesting the entire world.” I contact it The Fantastic Application Explosion. Computer software is all over the place (and, increasingly, everything is software).

But accurately how quite a few commercially packaged software program apps are there in The Terrific Application Explosion?

Let us just take games and shopper-oriented applications off the desk. We know there are hundreds of thousands of this sort of applications for cell devices on the Apple Application Retail store and Google Play Retailer. It is reasonable to say that is a diverse kettle of fish than B2B software program, these as martech.

Well, at least today. Frankly, buyer and business enterprise application applications are driven by substantially of the identical underlying technologies. And you see increasing cross-pollination concerning those people domains. The consumerization of IT remains a huge motion underway. I individually see similarities concerning creators on purchaser platforms and “makers” inside firms leveraging no-code applications. And if you imagine the hoopla of the metaverse — which will 1 day rise from the trough of disillusionment — the convergence of business enterprise and customer activities will blur even further.

But for now, let us adhere to a slim interpretation of how many business application applications are there in the world?

The respond to: at least 103,528.

That is the selection of software program products and solutions profiled on G2’s web page as of previous 7 days. It is not a theoretical guesstimate. It’s an empirical rely — like the martech landscape, but spanning all company application categories.

I emphasized the phrase “at least” in entrance of that range for two explanations:

Initially, G2 acknowledges that they have not uncovered all of the business enterprise software package apps out there yet. My impact is that specifically in markets outdoors of North The usa, there is a ton nonetheless to uncover. Assume of China and Japan, for instance.

Second, new application startups preserve being launched. (You may be mumbling below your breath, “Let’s see what the latest economic system does to that merry-go-round.” Set a pin in that caveat for a minute – I’ll appear back to it.)

In other words and phrases, that 103,528 number is a lower certain of the B2B software package merchandise universe. The genuine number is certainly greater, and possibly considerably higher. 150,000? 200,000? Far more?

G2’s database is absolutely nevertheless rising, incorporating on regular 945 application products for every month.

What about consolidation, you say? These numbers from G2 are inclusive of the simple fact that they’ve managed more than 760 merger and acquisition scenarios because January of this year. So, yes, consolidation is occurring. But the paradox of simultaneous consolidation and growth in software program marketplaces holds correct. It is not just martech.

Speaking of martech, the people at G2 also shared with me the counts of 9,365 martech merchandise and 1,488 adtech merchandise in their database. Put together — which is how I’ve constantly thought of them — which is 10,853 madtech apps in whole. Additional than what Frans and I arrived up with in our 2022 martech landscape launch in May possibly.

Our strategy is to share information between us and G2 to get a superset of all of them. But it is nice to also have an independent corroboration that, certainly, today’s martech landscape definitely is on the magnitude of ~10,000 products and solutions.

Is 2023 the Yr of the Martech Cataclysm?

But let’s get again to that issue about the financial state I dodged previously.

No sugarcoating it. This following yr or two is going to exert a ton of stress on the current martech landscape. Funding will be more difficult to arrive by, and at considerably additional modest valuations. Marketing and advertising departments are going to have tighter budgets and turn out to be a lot more durable prospects when it comes to contemplating and negotiating martech purchases. This is the first time in in excess of a decade of exponential martech expansion that the business is facing a truly formidable economic ecosystem.

Certainly, this will final result in a lot of more acquisitions of smaller martech fish by even larger martech fish, as effectively as the private fairness group betting on the other side of this cycle. But a lot more painfully, there will be an increasing number of early-phase martech ventures that merely phone it quits after failing to both secure their subsequent funding round, find a inclined acquisitor, or rebalance their operations to profitability.

My most effective guess? Up to 20% of the present-day martech landscape could churn prior to 2024.

But it’s only the churn price of existing martech vendors that I have a dark prediction about. As considerably as collective sector earnings goes, I believe martech is likely to carry on to expand for the foreseeable long run. It’s possible not as rapid as it has been for the next few of years. But in the large picture, however rather rapidly. For one particular basic motive: the electronic transformation of advertising is considerably from about, and it stays one of the biggest levers every business on the planet has for winning and retaining shoppers.

Specially in the hard occasions in advance, wonderful martech will be very important to survival accomplishment.

Ignore valuations for now, which have been the semi-delusional yardstick of measuring martech ventures these past number of yrs. Revenue is the floor truth of the matter of sizing an industry. And I’m 99.9% specific martech earnings will improve calendar year-over-12 months for the rest of this ten years.

And to repeat the mantra of this write-up: it is not just martech. The whole software sector has massive progress forward of it. The inspiring chart earlier mentioned from Battery Ventures (with my two annotations in orange) is both of those an exact appear-back at software earnings growth above the previous five decades, but also a pretty conservative extrapolation of normal compound annual growth of application profits for the up coming two a long time.

Two issues pop out instantly from that chart:

To start with, holy cats, the dimensions of what the software marketplace is probable to develop to by 2050 dwarfs where we are nowadays. “Software taking in the world” is application having above more and far more of each and every aspect of the financial state. Globally GDP in 2020 was ~$85 trillion. By 2050, it’s predicted to be ~$165 trillion. It is truly not that mad to believe of computer software making up a mere $6 trillion of that, or ~3.6% of full GDP.

Second, the Dot-Com Bubble Burst in 2000 and The Good Economic downturn in 2008 hardly sign-up as very small dents in the upward slope of this mountain. That’s not to trivialize the challenges so lots of faced in those people several years. But putting people hurdles in standpoint of the extensive recreation, the overall trajectory of the application industry has not been derailed by the ups-and-downs of macroeconomic small business cycles. I imagine that’s going to keep on being true for this generation and almost certainly the future.

All of which leads me to conclude that The Good Application Explosion will continue by these up coming pair of many years. And on the subsequent wave of recovery and growth, the expansion in new application apps might very nicely hit light speed ludicrous speed.